Death of a child
by Cath-CSI
Summary: What if Lindsey didn't survive the car crash from Lady Heather's box? What would happen to Catherine then? This is my first fanfic, and I need to tell that I'm not used to write in English, so please be kind and enjoy. Reviews are welcome.


She sent everybody out only a few minutes after they arrived. They wanted to tell her how sorry they all were, and trying to comfort her as best as they could, but their colleague didn't want to see anyone. She never felts herself as unreceptive to their support as she was now. She just felt empty, absent and she have cried so much that her eyes were just dry now. She never thought she'd be able to cry that much in her life, and making the impossible to hide it from her friends was really difficult. So she cut the conversation off and thanked them as they did as she asked. She closed the front door and, by the same way, she closed herself to the world as well, again.

Outside, that was a worried look that was given to CSI's by each other. And there was something else in those eyes: sadness, uncomprehension, anger and a deep feeling of uselessness. No one among them knew what to do, nor what they could even say, so they parted. All left, except one. He came back to his car, closed the door and stayed there, wondering if he has to go, or confront Catherine and try the impossible to not leave her alone. In the meanwhile, he just stayed there, looking nothing especially.. He couldn't believe everything that what's happened in the last week was just the truth. Eddie, the crash... and Lindsey... One couldn't have imagined it would have happened one day or another... But it did... And at the present instant he just wanted to go back in the house and hug his friend, just to make her know that she's not as alone as she surely thought she was... But she asked them to leave.. He wanted to rush, but also to respect her wish... So it was an painful fight that was running inside his head. And so he stayed there, silently watching his friend's home.

On the inside, everything's was different. Catherine stayed there, on the door, her head turned back and her eyes closed. When she finally decided to open them to take a look around her, she was slowly crying again. But she didn't realize it. As she was looking around her, it was just as if someone was violently taking her stomach to turn it upside down. She felt ill, and she fought another sob. Even if the girl responsible of all this was now going to jail, nothing would be the same again. Everything has been broken for her. Everything. She never thought she would outlive her own daughter. Even before she realised it, she was walking. And she went upstairs, and her path lead her to Lindsey's bedroom. As she opened the door, a strange sound was heard; she got used to that particular noise the door always made, but now it just made her jumpy. And so her daughter's universe unfolded to her, as she stayed there, motionless, thinkful.. She walked in shaken and sobbing, her path was uncertain, as if she doubt about her right to enter the place. She watched every detail and most of them reminded her so many memories with Lindsey. She sobbed a little more. Each objet she touched with her eyes brought new stories. She didn't take care of the heavy silence around her, because all in her deep inside was just pain and sorrow... She couldn't help but hope all of this was just an awful nightmare, and that she'll soon wake up and hold her daughter as tighter as she ever could. But something's in the deep inside of her mind reminded that it everything was very much true, and that that kind of idea was unrealisable... Lindsey... Her daughter... Her whole life, left her. She passed her hands in her strawberry blonde hears and suddenly touched something wet. Just a second after, she knew that was new tears spilling down her cheek. Her eyes touched a picture of them both, and she couldn't make it anymore. She screamed in anguish, pain, and sorrow as she knelt, moving slightly in anger, crossing her arms around the picture she had taken.

"Why?" she wondered. That's all she ever wanted to know. "Why her? Why now? Why this way to leave?"

To these thoughts were added the memories about the accident. The fallen car, the falling rain... This cursed night that had swallowed her only child. Still she could remember her stillness as she found her in the car. She thought she was arrived just on time. What an effing mistake. Yet she was now in the bedroom, alone, and all she could do was to scream another painfully teared cry toward the ceiling. Just one question, but no answers: Why?

Grissom was still outside, and he could less and less respect Cath's wishes. He made up his mind and approached the house again. As he was slowly walking toward it, wondering about the best way to try and calm down his best friend's pain, he heard an awful cry. At first, he didn't realised it was Catherine's voice. The sound was too awful for him to understand it right away. But then, he remembered everything. The night Lindsey called her mom after a car crash. She was alone as the water came inside the vehicle... How Catherine rushed to find back her daughter, following her indication... How the line went dead after a few minutes of bad connection.. How her colleague was pissed off about it... But he surely remember the look on Catherine's face when he arrived on place.

**°°O Flashback O°°**

_She was all wet, as if she needed to drown in the water to get what she wanted to reach. He found her sit on the edge of the road, holding her daughter in her arms, and singing her a calm song... As he looked better, he noticed that the water on her face wasn't caused by the rain. She's been crying, and she still was... But her eyes were expressionless, as no one knew what to do. And then he saw her. Her innocent face so pure, even in death. She was pale, and layed still on her mother's lap as Catherine was bercing her, kissing her hear. Catherine didn't answer anyone who tried to slowly talk to her. It was scary, and painful to see her like this. But even more, his heart breaked any time he watched the silent child. He was staring at two beautiful angels, and one would never even know it. He noticed David were gently coming and he stopped him. "Give her some time". "But I..." Grissom gave him a look that make him shut up. He slowly walked toward the mother and her child, not wanting to frighten the grieving woman. She was still singing as he knelt beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder, making her suddenly silent. She still was holding her daughter, but she held her tighter as he talked to her with a small voice, even if she barely heard him. However, she kinda realised Gil's presence, yet she couldn't let go her baby. She refused to accept it, and she pressed her heard against Lindsey's cold cheek,starting again to mutter a bercing rhythm. Gil sat beside her, and took them in his arms. Catherine felt it, and turned her head towards him. "It's okay, Catherine.. Everything's gonna be okay.. Just.. Let her go..." he told her gently, looking in the watery blue eyes of hers. She looked at him, as if she remembered who he was for the first time. _

_"G-Gil? She.. She's sweet isn't she?" did she answered, refusing the fact that she was dead. _

_"Yeah she is. She always was... She's just like her mother..." _

_She glared at him for a moment, then put her head in his shoulder and cried again..._

_  
"I c... I can't..." _

_"It's okay.. It's okay" _

_He felt his heart break as he knew she wasslowly letting Lindsay go. Then at once, just as if she decided to suffer all at once, she wrapped her arms around his neck.letting Lindsay out of her reach for the first time since she arrived. Gil caressed her hear, trying to confort her, to let her know she wasn't alone. People around them were looking away, respecting her pain, even if they were nearly as sad as she was. But their sadness wasn't the same that the one she'd felt. She calmed down a little bit, and that's when Gil allowed David to approach to take the little body.As the ME did so, he helped Catherine get out and he slowly lead her a few paces away. She watched her daughter one last time, as she was taken away from her, and she was about to sob again, but did not. Instead of that, she left with Grissom, who refused to allow Brass ask her questions. They found Eddie's body a few hours ago, yet she didn't seem as upset as when she knew about Lindsey's death. Eddie had beaten her, but her child was all she ever was proud about. More than herself. And now she was gone._

_For a week, she did it all as if nothing had happened, even if Gil caught sight of her crying silently in her office. They gathered proofs, and made connections to discover what happened to Eddie. And the reason why he left his daughter die in his car. All fault of a singer.. Catherine lost her cool when she heard the young woman talk about her daughter just as if she was a single piece of shit, and was put away by Sara. But finally, she was put in jail and the team accompanied Catherine back at home. _

**°°O End of flashback O°°**

It was the first time she went back to her home since the accident, and she felt herself desperatly alone. She didn't know what to do, kneeling there in her dead child's bedroom. But she was still sobbing when she heard a running pace. She didn't even turned back when the door opened again with its so undelightful noise. She just layed there, motionless; she didn't felt the need to turn back, she knew who it was. Grissom knelt by her, just the way he did not so long ago, and she rested her head against his chest, hardly breathing, trying to calm herself down. Grissom rabbed her back, gently, and didn't say anything to try and comfort her. He knew this would be useless. Words were always useless in such situations, all Catherine needed to feel was that he was there, just with her, and that he understood what she was getting through. He wanted her to know that they'd go through it together, that she will never have to feel alone again. But words were useless. So he stayed there, caressing her hear once, or maybe twice, trying to be the anchor that would keep her with them. He didn't want to lose her, she didn't want him to leave. He was the only shoulder she ever wanted to lean on, because he knew her better than anyone else. Maybe better than herself.

Both of them just stood there, one comforting the others, when Catherine broke the silence, it was to speak about Lindsey. It seemed good to talk about her daughter, to share memories instead of keeping them inside of her. Sharing those memories helped her accepting it. And more she talked about that, more she became sure that if Lindsey could see her, she'd be smiling. Her mother heart told her that her daughter was okay, anywhere she was. As she remembered things, and while Grissom talked to her about his viewpoint of the girl, her eyes caught sight of an unexpected object, one she didn't even knew was existing. She got up, and Grissom turned silent, wondering what was happening.


End file.
